


Four steps to mortality

by Fatale (femme)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-05
Updated: 2006-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-27 14:06:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/662858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femme/pseuds/Fatale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Grimmauld Place, he rarely got a moment's peace, what with new arrivals every day. The side of Good may be stupid, but the side of Evil was noisy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four steps to mortality

**Author's Note:**

> Do I even need to put spoilers warnings anymore? This was written a long time ago. If you don't want to be spoiled, you should probably stop reading fic.

For [](http://omniocular.livejournal.com/profile)[**omniocular**](http://omniocular.livejournal.com/) 's [January Challenge](http://www.livejournal.com/community/omniocular/15207.html). Originally posted [here](http://fatale.livejournal.com/115845.html).

 

Four steps to mortality  
Gen: Phineas Nigellus Black and Mrs. Crouch  
Rated: PG  
WC: 1014  
Thanks to [](http://hansbekhart.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://hansbekhart.livejournal.com/)**hansbekhart** for looking over this and telling me I can write gen, if I wanna.  
Also, Barty is not dead, just kissed. So he's uh, not terribly responsive.

 

 

 

When Grimmauld Place was compromised and the Order of the Phoenix moved their headquarters, the Death Eaters attacked the dilapidated house only a few days later only to find it abandoned. Unplottables were only unplottable if the owner was still alive.

Phineas Nigellus Black, who had once hung in the Headmaster's office in Hogwarts, escaped the raid at Hogwarts by slipping out of his portrait into the one at Grimmauld Place, where he found himself stuck. He'd once tried going back to the one at Hogwarts, but it was barely inhabitable and he couldn't stand to look at what remained of his former office.

Phineas couldn't help but feel put-out by the commotion at Grimmauld Place; all he had really wanted was to rest and be left alone by Dumbledore. There was little chance of that now, what with Albus being done in by a member of his own staff, and Hogwarts still a smoking pile of rubble. He felt a momentary pang at that thought. No matter how much he loathed that twinkling old coot, Hogwarts had belonged to them both.

In Grimmauld Place, he rarely got a moment's peace, what with new arrivals every day. The side of Good may be _stupid_ , but the side of Evil was _noisy_.

It seemed that every Death Eater had a family portrait they wanted hung nearby and the crowd had become nearly unbearable. Phineas scoffed at the blatant show of sentimentality, though he could appreciate the familial loyalty behind the gesture. If there was anything good about the Death Eaters, it was that at least they had their priorities in order.

It was a week into his stay at Grimmauld Place that Barty Crouch Jr. was given a portrait of his beloved mother. He wandered around with the portrait clutched in his fingers until someone finally took it and hung it on the opposite wall. He knew of Barty - everyone did, what with him killing his own father and all - but in Phineas' opinion, the boy just needed a strong paternal figure. One he couldn't kill, preferably.

In general, Phineas had very little patience for people (especially those of the young variety), which is why it was such a mystery as to how he ascended to the position of Headmaster in the first place. There were rumours of torrid love affairs and scones, but nothing had been proven.

"Mr. Crouch," he called out imperiously to an ever-increasingly wan Barty Jr., "You need to eat and then sit down and try to think of some way to keep your fool arse out of Azkaban."

Barty rarely listened, which just confirmed Phineas' long-held belief that youths these days were useless wretches who wouldn't know good advice if it bit them on the bum - and Kreacher very nearly had the one and only time Barty had tried to remove Phineas' portrait so that he could walk by in peace.

After a while, Barty just stopped walking altogether.

When a portrait was hung on a wall in Grimmauld place, it was there to stay (something to do with old, dark magic or half of those blasted portraits would have been gone years ago when Phineas himself owned the place) so when Crouch stopped coming to their wing of the house, it was closed off. The sounds of faint laughter reached them occasionally, but most of the portraits didn't notice. They slept their days away while Phineas fidgeted impatiently. He couldn't sleep, he'd slept for years and he wasn't tired anymore.

Finally, Phineas, nearly mad with boredom, deigned to drop in on Mrs. Crouch, whom he secretly thought lacked in the parenting department.

"Can I help you?" the pale woman asked politely. She'd been here for well over a month and this was the first time Phineas could remember hearing her speak. She sounded weak to his ears.

"Where are you buried, then?"

If it was possible for oil paintings to become paler, she did.

"Myself," he boasted proudly, "I'm buried in the Black Family Cemetery. There's a portrait overlooking the window on that side of the house, so I can even check on myself when I feel like it."

"How dreadfully morbid," she said primly.

"You don't know where you're buried, do you?"

"I was told it's somewhere right outside of Azkaban."

Against his will, Phineas shivered. He'd heard stories, of course, but it was hard to know what was fact and what was idle gossip when you were talking to portraits. They were too good at hiding their expressions.

"On a hill. He said he'd visited there, just the once. No more than that because it was too dangerous."

He didn't know quite what to say to that. Most of him thought it was entirely her fault - if she had raised her son better, then perhaps he wouldn't have killed his father, condemned his mother to death, and joined the Death Eaters.

Of course, he remembered a young Tom Riddle coming into Dumbledore's office. After each visit, Dumbledore would turn to him with troubled eyes and Phineas would do his best to assuage his fears about the student. He thought he saw a fair bit of himself in the Riddle boy, actually.

He was still a little embarrassed that he hadn't seen that one coming.

"It's not fair," she said, blotting at her eyes with an antique lace handkerchief.

"There, there," he said, awkwardly patting her back. He thought he'd once done this for Bellatrix's portrait, but it was so long ago, he didn't remember and the edges of his memory were turning to ash and blowing away. There was only so much you could remember when you lived forever, he thought regretfully.

And Mrs. Crouch was right, it wasn't fair, not in the least. If life was fair, Dumbledore's portrait wouldn't hang empty, scorched beyond recognition. And he wouldn't be here in Grimmauld Place collecting dust. He'd be back where he belonged in the Headmaster's office, staring into the fire and trying to ignore Dumbledore offering yet another troubled student sherbert lemons while Fawkes cooed softly in his ear.

 

 

 

 

end.


End file.
